1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to user interfaces and document processing methods for controlling the selection of listings from a database to display on web pages.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of systems exist for displaying “paid placement” type listings on web pages. One type of system allows listing providers to associate their respective listings with specific keywords. When a user submits a search query to an Internet search engine, the listing or listings associated with the keyword or keywords entered by the user are displayed on the resulting search results page—typically under a heading such as “sponsored links” or “sponsored results.” The display position of each such listing, and the amount paid by the corresponding listing provider if the listing is clicked on by a user, are typically dictated by an associated bid amount specified by the listing provider. Typically, the listings are displayed on a variety of different independent web sites through a process known as syndication.
In some systems of the type described above, the listing providers can additionally specify target geographic regions in which their listings are to be displayed. For example, a merchant that does business in a particular geographic region may, in addition to associating its listing with one or more keywords, request that the listing be displayed to users in that region. In such systems, the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses associated with the search requests are used to identify or predict the locations of the users.
Another type of system operates by selecting paid placement listings to display on relatively static web pages by performing content-based analyses of such pages. For example, Google's AdSense program allows web site operators to configure selected pages of their respective web sites to display or “host” listings served by a remote listing server. To select appropriate listings to display on a given page, a crawler program analyzes the textual content of the page, and attempts to match the page's content to relevant listings.
A significant problem with these systems is that they typically select paid placement listings to display on web pages without taking into consideration information about the preferences or prior actions of the user who is requesting the page. As a result, the listings are frequently of little or no value to the target user.